The article presents the thesis that marriage based in mutual love is a new reality made possible by modern social and technological advances. Prior to the modern world, marriage ensured social stability and the survival of the family's resources through procreation and sharing in the family's tasks. People chose their spouses, or more likely their spouses were chosen for them, in view of this purpose. Marriage based on reason, rather than love, was the basic principle. Sexual pleasure was cast as paradigmatic of the greatest sins. Marriage stability was founded on a strict definition of gender roles. In the past century, we have witnessed a significant shift in family life. This can be seen on three levels. On the political side we are witnessing, since the 1970s, a new understanding of marriage based on love. This necessarily makes the relationship more fragile. A second dimension regards the "techno-economical". The movement since the 1960s from an industrial economy to one based on information technology has brought about a society based on consumption, where manual labor is reduced to a minimum. Marriage in and of itself does not increase economic stability as it did when the family business was based on physical activity which two could do much better than one. A third dimension regards the way in which people are formed in our modern consumer society. Unlike in the past, there is no endpoint to educational formation. We continually reinvent ourselves throughout life, no longer entering into a stable adulthood in our twenties, but continually seeking new adventures. Marriage thus becomes not a permanent state of life, but part one of our life projects that can and should be set aside when it no longer contributes to personal growth. These three factors are reflected in the fact that marriage today is not primarily based on rational choice but on love and sexual attraction. The article concludes with the argument that it is only in a modern democratic society that a marriage based on intimacy and love can exist, and that this new development in regard to marriage inherently makes marriage more fragile. This is not in and of itself negative but reflects the emergence of a new reality for marriage.